Press — Ecosystems in the Sky

news

2024

September: Consultant to artist Beccy Maccray ‘s nature installtion “Intuition Maps” (see here and here) at Fermynwoods, inspired by deep ecology and creating an interactive experience where the behaviour of animals navigating, migrating and moving in the world may teach us about ourselves. Opening Sept 15th at Irchester Country Park, Gipsy Lane, Little Irchester, NN29 7DL, UK
July: two new scientific paper submissions
Collaborator and fellow Maldives field worker Will Hawkes speaks about the parasitic flies we found attached to the wings of migratory dragonflies in the Maldives on his TikTok
June 25th-28th: The VII European Congress of Odonatology (ECOO 2024)
May: A spring absent of a large vagrant emperor (Anax ephippiger) influx: only 121 observations between Jan 1st to May 31st in France (in comparison to 1601 observations for the same period in 2023). Data soruce: www.faune-france.org
February: New blog post, or rather, poem post. Some wise words from the past.
January: Talk on insect migration at Mid-Devon Wildlife: here

2023

Field work on migratory insects in the Maldives Oct 30th-Nov 18th. Blog post coming
Talk on odonate migration at The Royal Entomological Society Conference in Penryn: here
Coming up the 5th-7th of September: The Royal Entomological Society Conference in Penryn, UK: Ento23. Ecosystems In The Sky will be there and presenting new exciting research on the morning of the 5th
New publication: “The genome sequence of the Brown Argus, Aricia agestis”. In this paper we present the complete genomes of two male butterflies of the species known as the brown Argus. The paper is part of the Darwin Tree of Life, which aims to sequence the genomes of 70,000 species of eukaryotic organisms in Britain and Ireland. Read more about Darwin Tree of Life here.
June 25th - 30th: The International Odonatology Congress (ICO2023) in Paphos, Cyprus. Organsied by The World Wide Dragonfly Association: ICO 2023
April 15th: After being spotted in southern Spain in mid-March, vagrant emperors have now travelled up through France and are arriving to southwestern UK, having been spotted in Devon and the Isle of Scilly
April 13th: The newly written violin concerto ‘Globe skimmer surfing the Somali Jet’ by Tebogo Monnakgotla is performed by Johan Dalene tonight at the Concert Hall in Stockholm. It will also be performed in Lahtis, Finland, and in London on December 8th: get tickets here
February 16th: Our study on the physiological and meterological aspects of globe skimmer migration over the Indian Ocean is now one of the most viewed publications by any Fronties journal: 21 783 views and with a impact Altmetric score of 128 (an Altmetric score over just 20 is considered very good). View the published paper here
January: Do you have a vagrant emepror exuviae or adult preserved at home? Or one that you have found in the wild? Then you can send that in to the Italian vagrant emperor project, run by Giacomo Assandri, a new collaborator of Ecosystems In The Sky. More information: Progetto Anax ephippiger (in Italian)

2022

eBook chapter in “Ecophysiological Adaptations Associated with Animal Migration”, page 94-110
New publication in Frontiers in Marine Science :The evolution of predator avoidance in cephalopods: A case of brain over brawn?
September: Research is re-initiated after paus due to parental leave
New publication in Ecology and Evolution: Increase in protandry over time in a long-distance migratory bird
Interview with WWF Sweden (May issue, 2022:2, page 21)
New publication: Trollsländemigration: outforskade rekord (in Swedish). Mosaik, issue 1:22 page 30, the magazine of the Swedish Dragonfly Society
Interview with BBC magazine Wildlife, see excerpt here

2021

Interview with the online magazine The Wire Science on our research on the migration of the globe skimmer
Interview with the Indian online magazine Mongabay on our research on the migration of the globe skimmer
Our research on the globe skimmer dragonfly is the inspiration for a poem:
“Flecks of gold and red
shimmer over restless seas.
Incandescent gatherings
illuminating the horizon
as you throw yourself
to the mercies of the wind….” Read the full poem here
Feature in ScienceDaily on our research on the migration of globe skimmers
Feature in Universal-sci on our research on the migration of globe skimmers
New publication: “Envisioning a resilient future for biodiversity conservation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic” in People and Nature
New publication: “Unraveling the World’s Longest Non-stop Migration: The Indian Ocean Crossing of the Globe Skimmer Dragonfly” in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
The website for ConScience - the conservation science hub at Exeter University is launched

2020

Scientific discussion and input on the video exhibition “weathering data (souvenirs entomologiques I: odonata)” by Sibylle Neumeyer at The State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany
New publication: “The ‘migratory connectivity’ concept and its applicability to insect migrants” in Movement Ecology
New publication: “New records of the Paleotropical migrant Hemianax ephippiger in the Caribbean and a review of its status in the Neotropics” in International journal of Odonatology
Stipend awarded from Landshövding Per Westlings Minnesfond
Stipend awarded from The British Ecological and Natural History Society

2019

Invited speaker at London Natural History museum
Two stipends awarded for research on social behaviour in the Caribbean reed squid

2018

Stipend awarded from Fysiografen
Stipend awarded from The Lars Hierta Memorial Foundation
Stipend awarded from The Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation

2015

Swedish newspaper DN’s feature on our research on bird migration (in Swedish)
Swedish national television’s feature on our research on bird migration (in Swedish)

peer-reviewed publications

2023

Hayward A, Lohse K, Vila R, Laetsch DR, Hedlund JSU, Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: DNA Pipelines collective, Tree of Life Core Informatics collective, Darwin Tree of Life Consortium (2023) The genome sequence of the Brown Argus, Aricia agestis. Wellcome Open Research: 8:336.

2022

Jaitly, R, Ehrnsten E, Hedlund JSU, Cant M, Lehmann P, Hayward A (2022) The evolution of predator avoidance in cephalopods: A case of brain over brawn? Frontiers in Marine Science: 9:909192.

Johanna SU Hedlund, Fransson T, Kullberg C, Persson J-O, Jakobsson S (2022) Increase in protandry over time in a long-distance migratory bird Ecology and Evolution: 12(7) e9037

2021

Ruth H. Thurstan, Kimberley J. Hockings, Johanna SU Hedlund, Elena Bersacola, Claire Collins, Regan Early,Y unsiska Ermiasi, Frauke Fleischer-Dogley, Gabriella Gilkes, Mark E. Harrison, Muhammad Ali Imron, Christopher N. Kaiser-Bunbury, Daniel Refly Katoppo, Cheryl Marriott,Marie-May Muzungaile, Ana Nuno,Aissa Regalla de Barros, Frank van Veen, Isuru Wijesundara, Didier Dogley, Nancy Bunbury, (2021) Envisioning a resilient future for biodiversity conservation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. People and Nature, 00:1-24, DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10262

Hedlund J and Lv H, Lehmann P, Hu G, Anderson RC, Chapman JW (2021) Unraveling the World’s Longest Non-stop Migration: The Indian Ocean Crossing of the Globe Skimmer Dragonfly. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9: 698128